


Fever Dreams

by johnny cade (johnnycake)



Series: Switchblades and Leather [17]
Category: The Outsiders (1983), The Outsiders - S. E. Hinton
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Illness, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-06
Updated: 2018-06-06
Packaged: 2019-05-18 21:09:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14860335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/johnnycake/pseuds/johnny%20cade
Summary: Johnny gets really sick and goes to the lot. Dally finds him and takes him somewhere he can be taken care of.





	Fever Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> we love angst in this house!!!

Johnny Cade didn’t get sick that often, but in comparison to the rest of the gang, he was sick all the time. This probably had something to do with the fact he slept outside as often as possible, including during rainstorms and sometimes in the snow. He slept in a treehouse in the woods when it got too cold, wrapping himself in the blankets he’d stashed there for exactly that purpose. He didn’t want to go home was usually the reason he slept outside. But sleeping outside so much had consequences and one of them was a near constant cold and getting sick, _really_ sick, every so often.

And that was what had happened today.

It happened because he’d gotten caught outside during a big downpour. The night had started with clear skies, so he’d taken his usual place in the vacant lot and fallen asleep on the car seat, the wind gently blowing through his hair. He’d been violently awoken a few hours later when the downpour started and he was soaked before he’d even realized what was going on.

He might not have gone sick if he’d gone home or to the Curtis house, but he didn’t want to go home and he didn’t want to bother the Curtises, so he’d gone to the treehouse, getting more wet and cold as he walked. By the time he found it, after staggering around in the dark for several minutes, he was soaked through to the bone and shaking from how cold he was. He’d peeled off his clothes and buried himself beneath the blankets in the treehouse, but it hadn’t been enough. The blankets weren’t thick enough to truly warm him and the stagnant air outside wasn’t hot enough to make up for it.

When he’d woken up the next morning, it hadn’t even occurred to him that he might get sick from what had happened the night before. And it continued to not occur to him until two days later when he started coughing stuff up. Then his head began hurting the day after that and now he was curled up on the car seat in the lot, covering his face with his denim jacket, shaking and vomiting over the edge of the seat every so often. He was covered in a thin sheen of sweat and, if he could’ve seen himself in the mirror, he would’ve seen how pale he looked too.

Part of him knew that sitting out in the lot wasn’t going to make him better. He needed to be lying in bed at home, but he didn’t want to go home. Being sick at home wouldn’t make him better. In fact, it would probably make him worse. The only good thing about it would be his bed and that would only be if his parents didn’t come into his room to bother him. Which they always did.

No, this was better.

Even if he got more sick, even if he felt horrible, this was better than being back there.

A part of him thought of going to the Curtises house, but he didn’t want to bother them. They’d lost their parents not that long ago, Darry was always worn out and stressed from working, Soda was too, and Ponyboy had to focus on school. He couldn’t bother them. They’d stop everything to try to take care of him when they needed to be taking care of themselves.

 _No,_ he thought again. _This is better._

This way he wouldn’t be a burden.

He shuddered again from the cold and pulled his jacket more tightly around himself.

* * *

No one would think that Dallas Winston was the type of boy who liked to take walks after dinner, but he was. He’d light a cigarette on his front stoop before going down the two steps to the driveway and after that to the street beyond. He’d smoke his cigarette, blowing smoke at the sky, while he walked in a loop around the neighborhood. Sometimes he’d stop at the lot or the Curtises house on his way, but most of the time, he just walked. Sometimes it was nice to be alone.

He turned a corner and saw the lot and decided to see if Johnny was there. As much as Dallas like being alone, he liked hanging out with Johnny even more. And Johnny was the only person he felt that way about too. Everyone else he needed time away from occasionally. Johnny was different. He could spend all day with him and still not feel like it had been enough.

He chose not to examine too closely as to why that was.

As he stepped into the lot, his gaze turned to the car seat. Even from this distance, he couldn’t see anyone’s head poking out over the back of the seat, indicating someone was there, but he also knew that didn’t mean much with Johnny. Johnny wasn’t _that_ short, but he did like sleeping on the car seat when he didn’t want to go home, so Dally headed towards the seat.

He was about halfway there when he heard an awful choking noise. He paused for just a moment when he heard it again. It was coming from the direction of the car seat.

Picking up his pace, half running instead of walking, Dally went to the car seat and looked down to see Johnny, curled and shaking on the seat. He was wiping his mouth and Dallas could just see from his angle a growing puddle of bile next to the car seat. He grimaced, then looked at Johnny again. The kid was frighteningly pale and, as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, he shook violently. He looked like he was covered in a sheen of sweat.

“Johnnycake, you okay?” he asked. It sounded like a stupid question to ask even as the words left his mouth. Clearly, he _wasn’t_ okay.

“I’m fine, Dal,” Johnny replied in a shaky, hoarse voice. “Just a little sick.”

Dally’s eyes flicked to the puddle of bile again. “That sure don’t _look_ alright.”

But Johnny said nothing. He only shuddered, covered his face with his jacket, and lay, shaking, on the car seat. A breeze blew through the lot, ruffling the hair that was just barely visible around the jacket at the top of his head.

Something about Johnny lying there in a fetal position like that broke Dally’s heart.

Pressing his lips into a thin line, he said, his voice gentle, “C’mon, Johnnycake,” he reached over the back of the car seat to touch Johnny’s shoulder as he walked around it to kneel in front of him, next to the bile puddle. “I’m gonna take you over to the Curtis place.”

Johnny shook his head, his face hidden by his jacket. “Don’t wanna bother ‘em,” he mumbled.

Dally frowned, shaking his head. “You ain’t gonna be botherin’ no one. C’mon, you’re too sick to be out here. You’re only gonna get worse.” He stood, helping Johnny to his feet, making sure neither of them stepped into the puddle of bile as he did so. Johnny groaned, staggering and stumbling against Dally who grabbed him by the shoulders and steadied him.

Johnny blinked blearily, his eyes going all over the sky before finally landing on Dally’s face. Dally’s frown deepened. The kid was clearly very ill. Probably had a high fever and was delirious. As he watched him, Johnny coughed and spat something into the grass, which only made Dally wince. And he was coughing stuff up. He probably had pneumonia. If he stayed out here while being that sick, he could die. Dally shook his head, decided.

“C’mon,” he said, pulling Johnny against him and walking slowly in the direction of the Curtis house. “I’m takin’ you someplace you can be taken care of.”

To his surprise, Johnny drew his brows together and frowned, asking, “Why?”

Dallas set his jaw, staring straight ahead towards his destination. “Because someone has to.”

* * *

The world spun in circles as Dallas pulled Johnny to his feet. He saw the sky spinning above him, the sky and all the stars and for a moment he thought he was going to vomit again because of how fast the world was spinning, but instead he only coughed and spat a wad of mucus into the grass. He staggered, holding his head with one hand, since Dallas was holding his other arm, and stumbled into him.

“C’mon,” Dallas said, pulling Johnny against him and starting to walk. “I’m takin’ you someplace you can be taken care of.”

Johnny looked at him, confused. “Why?”

“Because someone has to.”

Neither one of them spoke the rest of the way to the Curtis house. It was just down the street from Johnny’s own home. He’d gone over there plenty of times before their parents had died. Then it felt like he was intruding when they had so many of their own problems. That was why he hadn’t gone there today. He didn’t want to add to that. Even now as Dallas was practically dragging him there through the light rain that had started, he felt guilty.

His parents had taught him as a child that asking for anything was selfish. Even now when he was sick that lesson didn’t go away. Neither did the guilt.

That feeling still didn’t go away as they ascended the steps to the porch and Dallas knocked loudly on the door, making Johnny’s head pound, until Sodapop opened the door. Johnny was staring at the ground, looking up made the world spin faster and made him feel even more sick. However, he didn’t need to look up to know the rest of the gang was over as well. He could hear the TV in the Curtis’ living room. He could see the feet of Steve and Two-Bit as they sat on the arms of the couch to watch the cartoons playing on the screen.

“Hey Dally!” Soda said, but whatever smile on his face must’ve disappeared because he said quickly after. “Is...is Johnny alright? He don’t look too good.”

This time Johnny did look up. He was already grimacing and squinting when he looked up at Soda, trying to hold back the bile, but he couldn’t. He ran past Soda into the house and into the bathroom, barely making it to the toilet in time before he vomited again. It was only bile. There wasn’t anything in it. He hadn’t eaten in a while. He vomited until he was dry heaving and moaning loudly in the Curtis bathroom, shaking from the pain of throwing up so violently. It wasn’t until he stopped moaning and was only gasping, his face resting on the edge of the porcelain bowl. He could feel his face sweating and sticking to the toilet.

“What happened?” he heard Soda saying as if from far away.

“I, uh, found him in the lot,” Dallas replied. “He was sittin’ on that car seat, shakin’ and moanin’ and there was a puddle of puke next to it. He didn’t look good, so I brought him here.”

“Why didn’t he come by himself?” Soda asked.

“He thought he’d be botherin’ you,” Dallas said.

Then Johnny heard footsteps and someone gently pulling him to his feet by hooking his hands under his arms. He grimaced, the world spinning again as he rose. For a moment, he thought he was going to vomit again, but then his stomach calmed and he only burped instead.

“Take him into my room,” Darry said somewhere off to his right.

Whoever was holding him must have assented because they began to gently lead him in that direction. Johnny kept his eyes on the floor, praying he wouldn’t vomit in the Curtis’s hallway on the way there. Someone must’ve seen how green he looked because as he staggered through the doorway, he heard them say, “Get a trash can in case he’s gotta throw up again.”

“’M sorry, Darry,” Johnny heard himself saying as he practically fell onto the bed.

“It’s okay, Johnnycake,” he heard Darry say. He sounded so far away. “Don’t worry about it.”

Johnny felt someone taking off his shoes and socks. Gentle hands helped him out of his jacket. Someone asked him if it was alright to take off his pants too and he shifted around to take them off himself. Then that same someone pulled the blankets up over him and Johnny let out his first soft, relieved sigh for the first time since he’d gotten sick.

In moments, he’d fallen asleep.

* * *

Dallas tucked the blanket around Johnny, watching him drift off to sleep in Darry’s bed as he did so. He looked so much younger when he was sleeping and that was saying something considering the kid already looked several years younger than he actually was when he was awake. He still looked sick: pale, tired, covered in a thin sheen of sweat, but in Darry’s big bed that dwarfed him, he looked better than he had curled up in a fetal position on the car seat in the lot.

Dally looked at the gang, all standing around Darry’s bed, arms crossed over their chests, their faces in varying states of concern. Not for the first time, Dallas wished Johnny could see this. Maybe then he’d understand that it wasn’t a big deal for him to come over here when he was sick. The only reason they worried was because they knew he didn’t think he deserved to be taken care of.

As if to prove this point, Darry looked at Dally and said, “D’you know how long he was out in the lot before you found him? Or how long he’d been sick?”

Dally shook his head, his gaze shifting back to Johnny. “No,” he said softly. “I _don’t_ know.”

Steve moved, shaking his head and letting out a soft curse. “Why don’t he ever tell us when he needs help?” he said. His voice sounded angry, but Dally knew he wasn’t angry at Johnny. He was angry at the situation. “One day he’s gonna die cause he doesn’t think of himself first.”

No one said anything. They all agreed.

For a while, everyone stood over Johnny, watching him sleep, worrying about his future and his well-being more than he ever did. Then Darry broke the silence saying, “Soda, go fill a bowl with water and ice. He’s probably got a fever and he’s gonna need a cold rag on his head to bring it down. I’m gonna make him some soup for when he wakes up. Ponyboy, Steve, Two-Bit, go back into the living room and let him rest. Dallas, don’t move.”

To Dally’s surprise no one asked why Darry told him not to move and it wasn’t until Soda had come back with the bowl of ice water and handful of washrags, that he realized the reason Darry had told him not to move. Fevers made people delirious. If Johnny didn’t have Dally by his side when he woke up, he might not think he was there at all. Darry wanted Dally not to move because he was afraid Johnny would hurt himself if Dally _wasn’t_ there.

The thought made Dallas press his lips into a thin line and clench his hands into fists. It had been four years since he came back from New York and still Johnny was feeling the aftereffects of his absence. It made Dally hate himself even more. It didn’t matter how many times Johnny told him it wasn’t his fault. He knew that Darry still blamed him. He knew the rest of the gang did too, even if they didn’t say it. And he couldn’t help blaming himself. After all, he’d been the one who’d left.

“I just don’t get it,” Soda said, pulling Dally out of his thoughts. He turned to him and saw him wringing out a washrag into the bowl of ice water before placing it on Johnny’s temple, letting it hang over his forehead, since he was lying on his side. “We tell him all the time how much he means to us, how he’s welcome here any time he wants, and yet...when he gets sick he goes to the lot.”

Dally swallowed. “I think it’s cause of his folks,” he said, his voice unnaturally quiet.

“What?” Soda said, turning away from sponging Johnny’s sweaty skin with another washrag to look at him with brows drawn together.

Dally looked at Soda. “He’s been told since birth he’s ungrateful and selfish by his folks. I don’t think that shit is gonna be unlearned overnight.”

Soda didn’t reply. He only swallowed and looked away, but Dally knew what he was thinking. He’d thought it before himself: it wasn’t fair that out of all of them, Johnny should be the one to feel that way. He was the least selfish and ungrateful of all of them. Dally had seen him step around anthills instead of kicking them to dust like any of the rest of them would.

Johnny didn’t deserve to feel he was unworthy of love and affection.

* * *

When Johnny was next aware of anything, he felt coldness on his head and something cold being pressed against his skin. He didn’t open his eyes or tell whoever was doing it to stop because it felt good. His skin was warm, so warm he was sweating, but the cool wet rag made it feel better. He let out a sigh, relaxing back into the mattress.

“How is he?” he heard someone ask. It took him a moment to recognize Darry’s voice.

“He’s sleepin’,” someone replied. Another moment to realize that was Soda. “He ain’t woken up yet, but I don’t think he’s gonna for a while. He’s real sick and sweatin’ a lot. I’m gonna need another bowl of ice water pretty soon.”

There was a tense silence before Darry replied, “Just keep him comfortable. We don’t know how long he’s been sick. And don’t make him too cold. If we’re not careful, he’s gonna get more sick. I dunno if any of us would be able to afford the hospital bills that would come with that.”

Johnny swallowed and squeezed his eyes for a moment, but apparently no one noticed because no one said anything. A part of him now felt guilty for not coming to the Curtis house sooner. If he had to go to the hospital because of that and then cost them a lot of money they didn’t have…

He didn’t want to think about it.

There was another silence and then he heard footsteps as Darry left the room.

“He’s always gettin’ sick,” he heard Soda say, but he didn’t sound angry, he sounded...sad. “It’s been like this ever since he was a kid.”

“When exactly?” another voice asked. Dallas. That, Johnny knew instantly, was Dallas.

Soda must have turned to Dally because his voice was slightly distant as he said. “I dunno. Probably around the time you left, I guess? When he was seven, almost eight?”

More silence, during which Johnny genuinely wondered if that were true.

He hadn’t noticed, but now that he thought about it, he realized Soda was right. Ever since he was seven, ever since Dallas had left for New York, he hadn’t gone more than six months without getting sick like this. And then there was the fact he was always weak, always shaking, and always seemed to be tired or have some sort of cough.

But why?

“I think it’s cause of where he lives,” Soda said as though Johnny had asked the question out loud. “I read somewhere that people who live in stressful situations get sick a lot.”

“He shouldn’t be livin’ there anymore,” Dallas replied. His voice was quiet, so unlike his typical loud, booming voice that demanded to be heard. Johnny could almost see him shaking his head as he said it. “If he don’t get out of there soon, it’s gonna kill him. Either they’re gonna kill him or he’s gonna do it himself.”

Soda was quiet, but Johnny knew it was because he thought Dallas was right.

**Author's Note:**

> OH WE LOVE FORESHADOWING, idk if y’all caught that, but yeah ;) 
> 
> also there is going to be a part two to this <3
> 
> as always kudos and comments keep me going <3


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